Among the returning films, Dan in Real Life fared the best as it slipped only 25% from last week. This is a good film and a real crowd pleaser. It is a romantic comedy for a slightly older audience and it actually delivers on its promise. At the other end of the spectrum is Saw IV, which dropped over 51%. It may be dropping pretty quickly, but was that really unexpected? Not really; these films are front loaded and will make most of their money within the first two weekends. Still, it raked in the bucks, assuring that further sequels will likely continue to make good bank.

Next week will see competition from the heavily promoted, mo-cap film Beowulf, from the Oscar winning director Robert Zemeckis. Also reaching the big screen is the holiday fantasy Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and the period romance Love in the Time of Cholera.

Three movies dropped off the top ten this week: Michael Clayton (12), Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? (13), and Gone Baby Gone (14).

Box Office Predictions Recap

Once again, my predicted number 1 film did not come in number 1. Fred Claus stumbled out of the starting gate and failed to live up to my expectations. I guess the hoped for Elf numbers aren't going to happen. Beyond that, my dollar predictions were hit or miss, off on films like Fred Claus, Lions for Lambs, and P2. Weirdly, my worst predictons were on the new films of the weekend. My placements were the best they've been in the past few weeks. Perhaps I'm headed in the right direction?

Anyway, here is how I picked the field: